There Are Worse Things
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day five hundred and seventy-eight:  Berry.St  When the alternate Rachel awakens in our world of McKinley, they are in for a shock.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 27th cycle. Now cycle 28!_

_**A/N:** Okay, so at the moment I'm slowly starting to plot out the next maybe three or so cycles, which is at least 63 new stories, and before I do this I wanted to ask you guys if you had anything you'd wish to see written, suggestions... Also, what would really help, if you have ideas for concepts for sets (like I've done the alphabet (twice), colors, sins and virtues, episode titles, etc), let me hear 'em! (via private message, if possible!) Thanks :) - **UPDATE! I'm going to be planning the next five cycles, which will take me through to September. So if you have ideas/wishes/anything, now is the time to speak up! :)**_

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><p><strong>"There Are Worse Things"<br>AU!Rachel, New Directions, Will, Figgins  
>#14 (sequel to 'In the Lions' Den') <strong>

She was exactly where she needed to be. All her life she had worked with one goal set before her, and she had done everything in her power to reach it. And now she felt she was right on the edge. They had won their Regionals, easily so, and now she and the rest of Vocal Adrenaline would be taking on Nationals, returning with one more trophy for her trophy cases. Nothing and no one would get in her way. She was going to succeed.

She didn't remember feeling sick, and yet as she woke up that morning, her head felt heavy and dizzy like she'd been spun around and let go… She squeezed her eyes, just a little tighter, rubbing at the sides of her head with her fingers, and then… The first hint of something being off came to her nose… This didn't smell like her room, it smelled… flowery. She knew she had gone home the previous night, slept in her own bed, so this made no sense. She was frowning even as she opened her eyes, and then… she froze. This was definitely not her room.

"What the hell?" her voice was slow and lethal; she was not in the mood for this. Still, because she didn't have much choice, she pushed the covers and got up. She looked down at herself, tugging and frowning at the nightgown she was wearing… Someone had changed her? How was she not remembering this? She had not been drunk when she went to bed the previous night, and yet this felt like a scenario best accompanied by a hangover.

The room was just… it was… this was her room in Lima, with Dad. She recognized the shape of it, but that was all she recognized. The rest of it, the colors, the furniture, all of it… that wasn't her room, not at Dad's or Pop's. If there was one thing she could see right away, it was that her trophies were all gone, and of all the messed up things she was seeing, this would always be the thing that commanded most of her attention. Whatever was going on, she was going to get to the bottom of it.

So out she barrelled from the room and started down the stairs. Even if she wasn't paying attention to everything, not completely, somewhere in her subconscious she was picking up on some things, one thing above all others. This was a home, a family home. Maybe it was a particular way of expressing it, but that was how she saw it… Home. Comfortable, warm, inviting, happy… The kind of place that was lived in, that was filled with all its stories, in the way things had been placed and removed and placed again, sometimes strictly for convenience, with a displaced film of dust… home. The way she knew either places where she lived, with either of her fathers, their break up had broken the steady rhythm of living by dividing belongings, which meant everything would have been reset, cleaned… a new life, new stories, new home… only it didn't hold anything on this place here, and she was about to find out why.

She heard laughter… Pop? What was he doing here? Better yet, what was he doing here that had him laughing? The last time she'd heard him laugh in this house, well… she couldn't even remember. But then she walked into the kitchen, and there they both were, sitting at the table, having breakfast, the two of them, just… happy. There was no better word for it. And for a moment she forgot about this odd world she had woken into because her fathers were happy and together in it. No matter who she was to everyone in the world outside those doors, in here she was a daughter, and seeing her fathers united like this… It couldn't not tug her by the heart and bring her feet back to the ground.

She sat at the table, quiet, still so very confused. They must have interpreted this as some kind of deflated expression of defeat, as Dad took her hand in his. "I know you're still bummed about Regionals. But you'll get them next year, I know you will," he told her.

That was when the bubble burst from around her joy at seeing her fathers together, and the rest came back to her… The room, the clothes, everything… And why was he talking about Regionals, when she'd just gotten through –and won – Sectionals? The calendar by the phone supported this though… Regionals… she had NOT been asleep that long, had she? Before she could really dwell on it, there was breakfast in front of her. Of all the things she knew and didn't know, she knew she was starving, so she didn't question it, and she ate.

Afterward though, she returned to her room that wasn't her room, and she went over the facts. She was in Lima. She lived with Dad, no; she lived with both her fathers… and if that was the case, then she wouldn't be going to Carmel, would she? She scanned the room until she found something to tell what…

McKinley… New Directions… She bowed her head, exasperated. As if things weren't bad enough, now she was apparently in 'enemy territory.' She knew about them, but the way she saw it they had nothing on Vocal Adrenaline, so why should she worry about them? Still, there was something in her that told her that was where she needed to be, like she would get some kind of answer there. So she went to get ready. She opened the closet doors and soon came to the horrific conclusion that she was living in some messed up world where lots and lots of clothes with animals on them was apparently okay, unless… If this was her place, her house, her life, her clothes… then she had to come to the devastating conclusion that she, Rachel Berry, was a loser.

After picking the least offensive items from that closet and getting dressed, she was driven – yes, driven, by her fathers, which maybe she didn't mind as much as she would let on if anyone asked – to McKinley High. She'd never been there, and she had to say, from first impression… she missed Carmel. She walked through the halls, like she would in any place… like she owned it.

She never saw the slushie coming. One second she was stomping through, and the next she was crusted with sticky purple ice, frozen in place. She didn't stay immobile very long though. Her head whipped around to find the hand that had tossed this in her face, sending chunks of ice flying out, hitting a few other students standing around. Rachel paid no mind to them though, because she'd found the culprit. He wasn't even moving away, he just stood there laughing… maybe he should have walked away. Maybe he should have run. She may have been small, but she never let that get in the way.

"Excuse me, just what is your problem?" she marched right up to him, glaring at him with so much fire in her eyes it was a wonder the ice from the slushie didn't just melt away.

"Oh, look at that, she wants to take on the big boys today!" Azimio just laughed on.

"I'm assuming you're talking about your height!" she threw back, and…

Will was pulled out of Spanish class when Figgins came over the PA and told him to come to his office. Judging by his voice, he had better get there as soon as possible. After assigning the class to read from their textbooks, he went on down to the office. He didn't know what he was expecting, but it was not at all what he saw. "You wanted to see…" he started, and then he saw who was sitting across from the principal. "Rachel?" he spoke, and she turned. He was too busy looking at her slushie-covered face to even notice the look in her eyes… She had briefly wondered who he was, and how he knew her name, but then she recognized him, from videos… this was the club director for New Directions… so she supposed he was her director, in this place. "What's going on?" Will asked her, and Figgins.

"Please sit down, William," Figgins told him, so he did.

"Are you alright?" Will asked Rachel, but she just stared at him.

"I think your concern should be directed to Mr. Azimio, who had to be helped to the nurse's office," Figgins cut in, a momentary look of pain in his eyes.

"W… Why, what happened?" Will looked from Rachel, to Figgins, and back.

"I was defending myself!" Rachel declared.

"With your knee?" Figgins asked, and the way he said it, he didn't have to say where this knee had gone. Will instinctively sat back in his chair when this understanding hit him.

"Look what he did to me!" she reached to her hair, her clothes…

"Rachel!" Will spoke up, but she didn't look at him.

"I was provoked. You can't penalize me for that, or would you have just let him go on with his day for this? What, because he's a football player?" she addressed the principal, and he had absolutely no way to reply to her, so instead he said…

"Let this be a warning… Detention, one month." Her sentence handed to her, Rachel got up and made for the door. Will awkwardly thanked Figgins before running after her.

"What has gotten into you?" he stopped her.

"Besides this frozen crap?" she glared. "Maybe I'm finally awake." Seeing how they were reacting to her, she had to wonder just what kind of Rachel Berry they were used to. "Is it time for Glee Club yet?" she asked. Of all things, she was almost curious to see how that would go. Sure, it'd probably be a laugh, compared to what she knew, with Vocal Adrenaline, but at this point she could use that laugh.

"No, not until this afternoon," he told her, and she almost shook her head.

"Fine, so that gives me time to clean up," she didn't leave him time to reply before she headed for the girls' bathroom. She had been too wrapped up in her fury, and now that she was finally looking to clean up, she was actually thankful she'd decided to go with this shirt combination, so she could peel off the more slushie crusted one and still have another one on while she cleaned. Not that it would have bothered her either way, but she was starting to think there was such a thing as drawing too much attention to herself in this present situation.

She was trying to clear off the stains without her anger and confusion leading to her ripping the fabric when she heard the door swing open and shut. She didn't think too much of it until she realized there was someone behind her… two of them, actually, cheerleaders.

"What do you want?" she muttered, still focused on the shirt.

"I don't know, I haven't decided if I should applaud you or high five you or something," one of them spoke, the latina one.

"Great, and you are?" Rachel went on scrubbing.

"What, so now we lost Regionals so you're going to ignore us?" the cheerleader replied, and finally Rachel paused… Crap, they knew her… so she was supposed to know them. She wasn't going to have a lot of time to turn this around. Luckily she hadn't actually looked at them yet, so she could use that. She stood up from her slouch over the sink and turned to look at them.

"Sorry, I thought you were someone else," she tried to make herself look a little more familiar, even though if they expected her to know their names she'd still be lost. Luckily, it didn't come to that.

"Right…" the cheerleader simply shrugged, approaching her, the blonde one following. "We heard Azimio wailing about his manhood up and down the hall, imagine our surprise when we found out you were the one who delivered the blow… I'm actually impressed with you now," she gave a polite little smirk, and before Rachel could say a word, the pair of them started to help her clean off the slushie. She didn't question it, especially seeing as they were pretty good at this, like they'd done this before. Before long, she had regained some form of a normal appearance… as normal as she could be, in this attire.

When she was done, the duo of cheerleaders looked like they wanted to tag along with her, but she made some excuse and parted ways with them 'until Glee Club.' She needed to gather up some information on these people or they'd realize she didn't belong, and at the moment she didn't think that would be something she wanted to see happen.

Once she found the library, she got to it. Finding the information wasn't too hard. All she had to do was go on the show choir organization's website. She found the listing for this Regionals they had supposedly lost, and there she was… Rachel Berry, dressed in gold, with the rest of her club. She saw the two cheerleaders, which the captions identified as Santana Lopez and Brittany S. Pierce, and she got to learn the names of all the other members. Just out of curiosity, she'd looked and, no surprise, Vocal Adrenaline had won. She had a smirk of pride for them, but then she wondered just who had lead them to that win, if she wasn't there… He was easy to spot, standing at the front with the trophy and Corcoran… "Jesse …"

THE END

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><p><strong>AN: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
><strong>**In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
><strong>**always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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